Thursday, December 1, 2011

Holidays

Holidays, love them or hate them, this is the busiest time of the year in candy world :-)
Now this is when I get myself in trouble, ideas, ideas and more ideas, just what I need right!?
I am going to keep it simple this year, with all the changes that just happened, I am lucky if I can keep up with my online orders. But one thing I really want to do is to create few new Gourmellow flavors.
I am thinking of bite size Gourmellows, little soft cubes of deliciousness.
The experimentation begins this weekend, after I have dedicate some time to my family and house and maybe myself :-P

Sunday, November 6, 2011

New Chapter

Glacier Ice Cream & Gelato shop in Longmont has closed the doors. Lots of changes, finding a new kitchen and rethinking what I really want to do now. The online stores keeps me pretty busy already and I have enough wholesale accounts to keep this going. But where do I want to go from here?
My idea was to finally detach myself from the chocolate line and dedicate my full attention to my vegan line, now that in a way I am free from keeping a full case at the store, I could slowly move toward the direction I want to go. I still have wholesale for the chocolates and those business are counting on me to provide what their customers want, so I would definately make sure that stays the way it was.
Part of me really wants to take a break. My hands are not doing so well and lately they are hurting to the point they wake me up in the middle of the night, that bad. The Holiday season is here, this is the ouchy time for me :-P
In two weeks we are leaving for a well deserved family vacation to visit family, this means I have to make a ridiculous amount of chocolates and confections before that! Starting to feel overwhelmed and little desperate for help. My sistuation work wise has not changed, so I am still struggling for time and few hours here and there between work, family and everything else, aren't quite enough.
I wish I could feel little more positive about this, after all this is my creature, my dream, part of who I am, what I do and how I feel. My only wish is to be able to decide what to do and feel good about it, when it comes to that point, no regret and no looking back.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

NLP Mind Fest http://ping.fm/2YbsB

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Nougatissimo, Caramella Orginal Vegan Confections.

 "Nougatissimo" The original Vegan European style Nougat, loaded with almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts, no honey or eggs here, fresh organic vanilla and organic agave nectar give the nougat an amazing fragrant flavor.

















"Caramella" Original vegan salted caramels. made with organic coconut milk, organic cocoa butter, sprinkled with Himalayan Sea Salt.

"

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Restless mind!

My mind is indeed restless, especially when I am at work. The fact that I'm forced to spend eight hours in that place, makes me go crazy, but I also get lots of ideas, the problem is that I have to wait until I get out of work, before I can dedicate to them! I admit I have no patience whatsoever, and I feel restless and irritated when I have to postpone my experiments.
Today in  particular is one of those days, where my mind is in total creative state. I can't help it, it just happens. I have so many ideas I need to write them down otherwise I will forget few, or more.
As my business is reaching a point where I need to decide where to go, how to go about it and when, my ideas are getting in the way sort of speak. Too many new ideas are not necessarily a good thing. Instead I need to focus on what is already here and develop my plan further. My focus right now should be my vegan line, finalize it, make it real. Also my chocolates, as the line is already established and solid, I should keep on a steady production, the season is right behind the corner, and if I don't keep up, it will sneak on me, as it usually does. This year will be even harder as my personal life is getting busier and the full time job keeps getting in the way :-P.
I have few more things I would like to add, but it is just the time to create all the new things, that is escaping me right now.
Sometimes I wonder if that time when I would finally do what I love, without have to run, rush, and literally killing myself, will arrive. I mean I am the one that have to make it happen, but I am not alone, I have a family and responsibilities that can not be waived, not right now. The kids are still very young, our family need attention, I need to take care of myself as well, what good will it do to finally arrive where I want, and be totally exhausted.
Meanwhile I am doing what I can to keep on going, I am working really hard to keep all the ends together, I am only hoping not to drop any :-P

Monday, August 22, 2011

Friday Sampling Event

This coming Friday I will be do some sampling at Piece, Love & Chocolate in Boulder. I will be bringing few of the new ganaches, like Colorado port and organic black mission figs, with organic EVOO and pink sea salt, and caramel passion fruit. I am preparing few other ganaches that are dairy free. I have been succesfull with olive oil ganaches, they are very smooth and allow me to play with textures and flavors, while keeping the ganache dairy free. I have played with some liquorice powder, coffee and anise and sea salt with Extra virgin olive oil. So if you want to know what an EVOO ganache taste and feels like, stop by Piece, Love and Chocolate between 5 and 7 pm Friday the 26th 805 Pearl St, Boulder, to say hi and try some of my crazy creations, I will have vegan nougat, vegan caramel with almond nougat dipped in chocolate and few more vegan goodies. See you then.

Friday, July 22, 2011

nowlistening to "Where is my mind" by Pixies

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Thursday the 21st I will be attending an event with CASA in Denver. I am preparing samples to offer, among sea salt caramel I will have caramel passion fruit ganache, Cabernet Sauvignon dark chocolate ganache and more. I am looking forward to help make this event even more successful.

Made With Love July Event Giveway

A really fun giveway From The Reynolds Mom. Tons of fun handmade stuff, reviews and more. Make sure to stop by Tomorrow Monday the 18th for a chance to win. Our Signature vegan sea salt caramel and nougat are part of the prizes :-)

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Making vegan white chocolate, take 4










I am pretty sure this is my fourth batch of vegan white chocolate, anyway I think it gets better and better everytime :-) This one (still going into the melangeur) taste like one of my childhood white chocolate bar, haha, amazing how smells and tastes can bring back memories in a blink.
I am also working on vegan truffles and chocolates, since that was my original plan, to turn some of my non vegan old recipes into vegan one, and thats why I began making my own chocolate. Sarah Amorese at Piece, Love & Chocolate would love to have more vegan items for their store, so I am on a mission to create few flavors just for her, she is an amazing friend.
These are the trio I create this weekend, well my weekend starts today so potentially I have 2 more days to create few more, yeahhhh!

From Left to right, Vegan milk with vanilla and touch of cardamom, vegan white with chai spices, vegan milk with tahini and sesame seeds. My favorite is the vanilla one, it as a great aroma.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Vagan White Chocolate

Chocolate making requires time, batch after batch, finding the right formula, the one that works for you, not an easy task, an expensive one too.
Rewarding as well.
This is the third batch of the white vegan chocolate. The first one was not quite right, the second I used a fermented soy milk powder, which I was very excited to try, but imparted a strong flavor to the chocolate, now the beauty of white chocolate it's neutral (most of the time) flavor that gives the chocolatier room to play with delicate flavors, this one is not one of those!
So back to the testing, since it takes over 12 hours to whip up a batch of chocolate, time is not on my side, so I had to do an overnight one. Set up everything right after I came thru the door from work, so it could be ready by 5:00 the next morning, in time for me to temper it and get ready for work.
This time I used a different formula and double the amount, because I need more to experiment with my chocolate vegan bars, I also used the organic non deodorized cocoa butter (Origin Peru'). One of my favorite chocolate is El Rey and they use undeodorized cocoa butter for their white chocolate, is one of the best white chocolate I have ever had (pre-vegan age :-)), it smells and taste like rain forest, hearty and luscious, definitely it can stands on its own! Anyway I would love to recreate a flavor close to that, that is why I am using the undeodorized cocoa butter. It might turned out it is too strong to stand without the dairy tones, and maybe the soy doesn't quite do the job, what I would like is to find a good rice milk powder (they mostly sell mixes) because I think it would e a good candidate.
For now I will keep experimenting.
Will do a testing this afternoon to see how this one turned out.
Cross fingers :-)

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Making vegan chocolate bars

The Chocolate making adventure continues, it is fun and frustrating at the same time. Vegan confecitions are tricky to make, especially ones that are worth eating but this journey has been also very rewarding, thanks to my wonderful customers that never fail to let me know how much they appreaciate my efforts to create vegan treats, I am very very greateful for them.
So I have been making few batches of vegan milk and white chocolate, and experimenting with various bars, mostly milk with white fillings, like Chai, strawberries and puffed crunchy millet and today a white pistachio filling.
The flavor profile is good but it will require more work and more time to develop a line that I will be comfortable putting on the market.
Again if I had more time, but have to work with what I have and make the best of it.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Vegan chocolate making, first try.



This weekend I did my very first batch of Vegan milk chocolate. Used half dose of the formula, since I figure the melangeur will probably needs to be conditioned.
The end result is not too bad but it definatelly needs some improvments. The flavor profile is little bit off, now I know that it needs couple of days to mature and to settle, but the sweetness in general is a bit off. I am assuming is the dairy free milk powder I used, is a soy free type and has a slightly lingering sweetness, that I dont like. The texture is good, but I would rather have something little bit creamier.
I have order a soy based vegan milk powder mix, I want to experiment and see if I can get the creaminess I want. I will be trying rice milk powder as well, but one thing at a time.
Mother's day approaching and I have still few orders to complete, I will be spending some time at the kitchen this week, and I will be visiting the Colorado Chocolate Festival on Saturday. After that I will be experimenting a lot more with chocolate making, even though my vegan live is going very well and I might be really busy really soon :-) Be careful what you wish for right!

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Super easy yummy recipe for MeatlessMonday and anyother day vegan http://ping.fm/MrIDd

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Chocolate making!

As I have mentioned a while back, I was playing with the idea of making my own chocolate, the main reason was to create a vegan milk and white chocolate as well as flavored chocolates.
Finally I have gather the courage to order everything I need to start the production. Ofcourse it will start as a small production mostly for my Vegan line, but eventually i will use my own chocolate for all of my confections.
No need to say that I am extremely excited about this, and even though I have limited time available to do anything else, I just can't help my self in doing so!
My first attempt will be vegan "milk chocolate", I have been dreaming of turning all my signature chocolates, that have been in production for now more than 5 years, vegan. Not sure how that will work my customers especially my wholesale ones, but I will make sure not to leave anyone disappointed, or at least I will try.
For now I am going to have fun while following my dream.
Happy Easter :-)

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Finally Saturday

Finally is Saturday!!! The last day of my working week and I get to relax, even though my way of relax is mostly experimenting with chocolates and confections!
I almost never rest, even when I think I am, my mind is always engaged in creative thinking. Right now i am thinking about the Easter production, I want to make lots of cute bunnies, filled with caramel, nut butters and marhsmallow fluff, maybe raspberry, as well as small and medium eggs, making a combination or something like that. I am also been tickled by the idea of making couple of egg scupltures for dispay at the store, I will see into that. Unfortunately as always my time is limited, and I have to pick my battles carefully. Production for the stores is a priority. Especially now that I have picked up few more places where to sell my chocolates, this is an exciting news and I am looking forward to expand, with my vegan line as well.
The new place where my chocolates are going to be featured its called Piece, Love and Chocolate, a lovely all chocolate thing shop, located at 805 Pearl St. Boulder.
I am very excited about this because it will give me the change to work closely with three very talented women, that with their journey into this new venture, inspire me to become a better chocolatier and confectioner.
Well few new things and more to do, I am ready and scared at the same time, mostly because I am tired and I wish again and again that I could do this full time :-) maybe some day, soon?!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The alternative

It's been almost a year since I have made the switch to a vegetarian diet, strictly vegetarian I would say. I have been battling with the idea of slowly ease into a non dairy line and do a total switch, but I now think I would just add a line of non dairy products and expand the already existing business. There are plenty of options and opportunities to explore and I am excited about it.
The main thing is I will be making my own chocolate, so I can create a milkless "milk and white chocolate". Point? I want to be able to replicate some of my flavors but dairy free. I dont like to be limited to a dark chocolate only option for my confections, dont get me wrong I love dark chocolate, but some flavor combinations are best with a lighter chocolate or even white.
So next step is to buy the equipment, not much for now I only need to be able to make the chocolate I need for my own production. Later I will probably buy something that will allow me to sell the dairy free alternative chocolate to the public and professional. The idea is also to do a soy free milkless chocolate, so this is going to be a challenge just for my easily bored mind :-)
I am still working on the vegan nougat as well, I keep going back and forth with the results, small adjusts need to be done, flavor wise I am already there, the texture needs some tweaking, I am up for that.
My regular DesiderioChocolate lines will remain the same and I think is the right thing to do, at least for now.
I will be working this week on the Valentine's collection, Hearts and hearts and then some more.
Meanwhile I keep dreaming of chocolate making and formulations.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Super easy yummy recipe for MeatlessMonday.

Cannellini bean soup;

2 cans of cannellini beans drained, one piece of celery chopped, half small onion chopped, one small carrot chopped, 2-3 tbsp of tomato sauce or paste, pinch of dry sage, 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 2-3 of cups of vegetable broth ( u can use powdered veg borht and add water) also u can find the already chopped veggies (carrot, celery and onion, in the frezeer section of the supermarket, called soffritto or mirapoux or something like that :-P).
Put the chopped veggies in a pan with evoo and 1 tbsp of water, cook for 10 minutes on low until the veggies are translucent, add tomato, sage and veg. Broth & beans, cook for 20 m. Salt to taste or use bragg aminos, using a hand immersion blender mash some of the beans in the soup to ur liking, the more u mash the thicker the soup will be, add more veg broth to make more fluid if u like. Serve hot with a drop of evoo, enjoy, it is super yummy.

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